I knew very early on that I was pregnant with my son. I needed no EPT nor missed date on a calendar to tell me that something had shifted in The Force.
Totally against character, I loved being pregnant. When no one else could tell, I whispered encouragements to the ever-dividing cluster of cells. I would tell stories in a sing-songy voice. I would meditate and unwind to classical music. Later when men would rush to open doors for my extended belly and women would place starfish-spread hands on my hard shell, I beamed.
It was the first and only time in my entire life I have not felt the coldness of loneliness; I felt filled. As I stood in front of my bathroom mirror the early afternoon of July 4, 1999 drying my hair and humming, a feeling as light as an eyelash, yet weighty as the fluttering of 1,000 butterflies tickled my insides causing me to stop: first movement. I remained on nervous alert the rest of the day hoping to recapture that flurry, this external manifestation of my internal love.
The ultrasounds of 1999 were crude in comparison to today's 3-D digitalized portraits. The first ones I received a game of trying to distinguish limbs and form from amoeba-shaped grey blobs and white scratches. However, the pictures retrieved at the six-month mark had me gasping. My son had pressed his face as close to the camera as possible seemingly declaring, "look at me, ma" illustrating a cheeky attitude he possesses to this day. I could trace the contours of his heart-shaped face awed by his perfectly spaced long almond-shaped eyes framed by distinctly arched eyebrows, copies of his dad’s.
He stared straight out, eyes wide open as if he were trying to sear a hole through my uterus to the other side. His tiny clenched fist tucked perfectly under his chin giving him the air of a scholar, Rodin’s Thinker in flesh. A precursor for me for a child who would request at age five, “Mom can you please stop talking? Sometimes I just need time to think.”
As the pregnancy progressed, my angst grew behemoth. I tossed and turned at the mercy of horrific dreams that I would leave my newborn at the store, the dry cleaners, people's houses. I did exercises of replacing affirmations in lieu of fear-based thoughts. They failed. How would I ever be able to care for this infant? To know what he'd need, to be able to respond to his wants. My pregnancy was riddled with doubts, fears, but how else could a motherless child feel?
My doctor informed me a C-section was necessary because of my son's wide shoulders. I fretted over the drugs my baby would receive and if I would be taking the easy way out if I didn't birth naturally. After much research, I relented. My doctor nonchalantly chose his birth day. "Well, my schedules really tight that week; Monday or Tuesday would be best for me," my doc said, "Yeah, let's do Monday."
I insisted that my husband sneak in a CD player so Jake could be born hearing the classical CD I had been playing incessantly throughout the pregnancy. Something familiar to him, something that sounded like home to herald his birth.
A wall of fabric was erected between us and my lower body. I breathed the last breaths as a non-mom, knowing that things would never, could never, be the same.
Jake arrived at 12:55 p.m. I felt nothing; the anesthesiologist had done a stellar job. "Here he is," a medic announced as the team scurried to the cleaning table and formed a huddle. His cry, I hadn't heard his cry. Panicked, I directed my husband to find out what was wrong.
Then a glorious demanding baby tiger wail ripped through the wall of thick silence shushing me like a lullaby.
I was scooted away to another room thick in a daze of drugs, giddy with the release of nine months of worry. A papoose was placed on my belly under my ribs. Midnight black thick hair plastered to his face, his eyes open as wide as possible staring at me like, "what the hell, ma???" -- I swear to you the exact look I've seen shooting out at me when he's discovered I've forgotten to put cupcake money in his backpack and the like.
Later that night, that first night of his first day of life, I panicked when my husband told me he was tired and that he was going home to sleep. I just assumed he'd bunk in the twin bed next to mine so we three could revel in this first night of family. I hated him for it. But in retrospect, his aversion to anything inconvenient actually turned into a gift he couldn't ever anticipate giving me.
I, totally unaware, fell into a slumber I assumed would carry me into the morning. I awoke to the baby tiger cry again and again. Sometime during the middle of the night a blanket of silence replaced the din of normal hospital raucousness, Jake cooed with the happiness of a full belly. The air in our room seemed to expand into a balloon-like buffer; I reached into the bassinet, hit the play button on the CD player and melted into the rocking chair with this poof of a boy.
The first notes of the song twirled notes around the amber-lit room dissipating into a misty magic around us. I cradled him. Held him against my face, lightly pressing his flesh into mine breathed his intoxicating baby smell hoping to imprint my scent on him. We rocked. I hummed. He explored my face, my hands with his wide eyes, his open mouth.
There had never been such a perfectly spun moment before and there will never be. Never.
We became known to each other that night, that first night. He and I. And it bound and ground us like the climbing vine which naturally reaches up to the stationary solid post, weaving its twirling fleshy young tendrils up and around until the two are seemingly one. Making both the post and vine stronger for the union.
My sister visited the next day and asked me what it was like, what it felt like to have him here, to be a mom, impatient for an answer. I chose to let the question settle like sediment in fluid until I was able to shake it up into a clear answer.
(The following analogy preceded post-911 security measures, e-mail, Skype and web cams—keep in mind.)"I feel like I’ve been waiting at the airport for a plane that’s landed but hasn’t had the decency yet to cough up its passengers. Waiting for someone I love like crazy. Like mad. Someone I’ve been apart from for a long, long time—seemingly centuries—so long that their face is more blur than clarity, more dream than reality. The anticipation boils to madness;
I cannot wait, I cannot wait, I cannot wait” my mantra as I will the door to open.
“Now, he’s here. He’s finally gotten off that plane. And suddenly every moment that occurred before—your whole life really—gets tossed aside like the fuzzy impression of a dream you cannot quite grasp. And your real life begins. That’s how I feel. He’s finally here.”
We drove home with this life, this person as the first snowflakes of the season floated from a starting point I couldn’t see, yet danced down into my world just the same, evaporating to a place I couldn’t imagine.
Motherhood gave me membership into a mystic tribe. Whenever I looked over my shoulder, I saw an infinite stagger of mothers cradling babies, one after the other, one behind the other all the way back to the beginning of time. An unbreakable cord linking us like tethered mountain climbers.
To say my life has changed since Jake is sophomoric. His impact on me has been the single most profound experience of my life. He continually causes me to challenge every belief I lived my life by, has shown me compassion, forgiveness, humility. He makes me laugh when I want to cry; makes me hang on when I want to let go. Because of him, I am more patient than I ever thought I could possibly be. He’s curbed my selfishness. I bite my tongue and drink the tinny blood rather than swear around him. For him, I smile at strangers, invite people over and keep my inner hermit hidden – no matter the personal price. For him, I’ve forged through some fears, try to look at the bright side of life, keep a keen watch on procrastination and make sure to buckle my seatbelt, floss and return the grocery cart back to the carousel no matter how heavy the rain. He has made me a better human being and more importantly, causes me to want to be a better person. Instead of the ubiquitous “What would Jesus do?” I continually question, what would Jake think?
I cannot help but honor him on Mother’s Day for without him, without us, there would be no cause for celebration. Baby, Happy Mother’s Day. Love you always and forever,
Mom
©L'uragana
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